The U.K.-based Nuffield Foundation has found that 20 percent of fathers who split from their wives lose touch with their children after being separated. Separated fathers also tend to spend more time with their sons than with their daughters, the study found. “The effect of a separation on a mother’s parenting capacity has also become an area of concern,” said Tina Haux, one of the professors who conducted the study reportedly said. Perhaps equally important, women who have been separated recently or for a long time suffer a decrease in confidence in their parenting abilities, sometimes resulting in higher depression rates and more misbehavior from their children. These facts have interesting implications for policy-making, researchers note. Measures like increased paternity leave encourage fathers to fully co-parent and may be the first steps in gender equality in parenting.